To think the UK national lottery have lost the bloody plot.

[Balgoresboy]

It used to be in UK that the odds were 1 in 14 million which were, by lotto standards, not too bad.

Then they added the extra numbers a few years ago which made it almost 4 times harder to win at 1 in 45 million. Initially they said it was to boost jackpots which I was a bit meh about but I forgave them on the principle that they introduced the guaranteed million quid on each draw which was along with the price of the ticket.

At the weekend dh bought me a lotto ticket and it appears they have went and removed the raffle whilst keeping the bad odds. AIBU to think they knew all along the raffle million pound would be removed but they introduced it to compensate for the odds getting so bad and remove it when the public forgot?

I know the euro millions odds are bad too but in fairness they still do the raffle if a million quid and it serves all of Europe so the odds were never going to be great but aibu to think the uk national bog standard lottery is now a piece of shit?

We did great at the Olympics this year which I have heard put down to lottery funding. That's the first time I've really thought about it as being something good. I live in a poor area and I hate seeing the lottery queues. I just wish there were smaller prizes and more winners. 20 500k winners per week would be perfect.

It’s just a tax on the poor and stupid.

But on the plus side it’s meant the government gas given up supporting lots of sports and charities.

Look at all those lottery funded Olympians.

@Stillgoings

We did great at the Olympics this year which I have heard put down to lottery funding. That's the first time I've really thought about it as being something good. I live in a poor area and I hate seeing the lottery queues. I just wish there were smaller prizes and more winners. 20 500k winners per week would be perfect.

People wouldn’t do it. It’s the hope of the big win that keeps people gambling.

it's not really charity though, it's stuff the government should be paying for already with tax money

Only if you want to start paying much more tax. There isn't enough tax to pay for the basics, since the UK is determined to be a low tax country.

The lottery funds many things that aren't particularly government responsibility- e.g athletes.
There are so many people who whinge about "their taxes funding athletes"... but the Lottery does good work in this field.

NinaBallerinaShoes

I run an office lottery syndicate. We usually win what we put in. It's our way of saving up for our Christmas do. We don't bother with Set for Life because most of us won't live for another 30 years

Dh’s office syndicate had the same idea. In 1 year they managed to win the grand sum of £10 towards their Christmas party
The following year it changed from being once per week to twice per week
They stuck with the Saturday draw only.
On one of the Wednesdays one of their lines came up. They would have won £140,000 each.
After that they gave up.

Wasn't the lottery set up after we did a bit shit in the 92 Olympics and the government finally accepted that every other 1st world country of similar size had some sort of government funded training programme but didn't want to had to deal with the press complaining about giving their taxes to sports, so came up with this ingenious fudge of funding?

I dont think they ever thought this many people would play it, I remember before it launched in the mid-90s, they said the jackpot would be around £1m - because the assumption was similar numbers would play it that played the pools. Think the government was equally caught out by just how popular it was and has reminded.

(Is playing the pools still a thing?!)

''For the main lotto, that's exactly what they have done. A lot of people here seem to be conflating the main lottery game with one of the other ones, possibly Euro Millions.

For the main lottery, granted, almost no-one does win the jackpot, but the odds of winning a million in every draw, which you get for 5 and the bonus is one in 7.5 million, which is better than the original lottery, for a life changing amount of money .''

They have not done it though. The other poster was saying that rather than pay out 50 million they should make it so that 50 people are given a million each. The lotto still have not done this as if even somebody gets 5 and 1 ball and gets the million it still would likely be still 1 winner at most and having just looked at the last 2 draws online there were 0.

So even if there was 1 winner each draw of the million, that is 2 a week in theory which isn't bad but it still is not the loads of winners the other poster was alluding to and that's what people generally mean when they say make lots of winners although I explained that could not happen in another post as it would mess with inflation.

''Plus if no-one wins the jackpot for about 5 draws, the prize fund rolls down so all the smaller prizes are increased, sometimes significantly, eg over £100 for 3 balls, or about £10k for 5. And in every draw, if you get 2 balls, you win a free lucky dip, so doubling your chances or halving the cost, depending on how you look at it.''

As for the lotto roll downs this is still bollocks and again not what the other poster meant. People generally play the lotto to get rich, that's its selling point. So yea if you win a million it's making you rich but if it comes to the jackpot being split so more people are getting 100 quid or even 10k, it's still shit as these sums aren't life changing and effectively nobody gets the life changing amount in that jackpot. If the lotto changed so that jackpots were split in this fashion of people making 100 quid or 5k, 10k etc then it would go bust as it wouldn't be worth the gamble.

(Is playing the pools still a thing?!)

It is. DH won the pools the other day. £20! He's decided to give it up as fed up with being sent cheques for piddling amounts of money.

We used to play the lottery every week before Covid. We've given up now. I was also in a work syndicate of about 15 people for 10 years. No winnings worth mentioning.

''I just wish there were smaller prizes and more winners. 20 500k winners per week would be perfect.''

and as I pointed out on another post, this would not be 'perfect' as it would lead to inflation for the rest of us. Be careful what you wish for.